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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28981245">always you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow_bird/pseuds/Willow_bird'>Willow_bird</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All For The Game - Nora Sakavic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Andrew Minyard Loves Neil Josten, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Neil Josten Loves Andrew Minyard, POV Andrew Minyard, Pining, Translator Neil Josten, Writer Andrew Minyard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:54:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,365</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28981245</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow_bird/pseuds/Willow_bird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Andrew Minyard has been in love with his best friend for over ten years at this point, but he does his best to try not to think about that. This becomes incredibly more difficult when he accidentally bases the characters of his newest novel off of himself and Neil -- and then each time he tries to start the damn thing it ends up sounding like a romance novel! It's the strangest cause of a writers block he's ever had to deal with.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>440</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>always you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/5a5b5p5/gifts">5a5b5p5</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>!!!!</p><p>Song: I Always Knew by The Vaccines</p><p>As soon as I listened and read the lyrics to the song I knew I wanted to do a friends to lovers, been-pining-for-you-forever, roommate situation! I hope you like it!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Andrew stared at the blinking cursor like its shuttering pattern was a code he needed to decipher. Like if he watched it long enough, it would begin across the screen on it’s own, revealing the story one letter at a time without him needing to dictate through the worn keys of the keyboard before him. This was not the first time he had had writers block, and it definitely wasn’t going to be his last - but it was probably the most infuriating bout in recent memory and with each blink of the cursor he was getting steadily closer to committing some kind of violent act of technocide. </p><p>
  <i>Doe sits in a crowded room, wearing his heart on his sleeve. Not a man known for sharing his feelings or really for feeling at all, this is not the metaphor in its traditional sense. The heart is not a heart, but it is on his sleeve in a very physical way. The heart is a man, his head resting on Doe’s shoulder as he dozes through the party after one too many hard ciders. The man’s tousled auburn hair smells like the sea breeze shampoo they both use and Doe wants to--</i>
</p><p>Andrew slammed a finger down on the backspace key and watched the words vanish rapidly, first one letter at a time, then whole words, then half-lines until it was gone. Returned to just a cursor pulsing back at him in steady judgement.</p><p>He tried again. Maybe if he started the story with the other point of view it would work better. He could begin the narrative in the middle of the story, or at the end, then jump back and forth in dual timelines - leading the reader up to that climactic point so they could feel the gravity of what was at stake.</p><p>
  <i>Abram knows he is going to die. He knows because he has always known. He is afraid, but only because it is a habit at this point, one he has run out of time to try and break. It is not the fear that haunts him now, though, as he lays on the dirty basement floor, watching as his death is sharpened only a few feet away, glinting in the dim glow of the single bulb that bathed the space more in darkness than in light. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>No, not fear, but regret. Grief. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>To be clear, Abram does not regret falling in love with Doe. He regrets instead that Doe loves him back. He regrets the pain that will--</i>
</p><p>This time, Andrew hit the key so hard his knuckle ached for a moment. When the cursor didn’t eat up the stupid words fast enough, Andrew made use of a keystroke shortcut and ctrl/A’d then deleted that fucking travesty before he could burn his eyeballs with it any longer. </p><p>Bad writing was something he could bully himself through. If he wrote shit, he could come along later and clean it up - polish it a little, replace pieces with something shinier that would distract from the parts he <i>couldn’t</i> remove without threatening the foundation, even if they were still actual byproducts of literary defecation. All else failed, at least the resulting manuscript would be biodegradable. </p><p>But this? What the fuck even <i>was</i> this? Because it definitely wasn’t the gritty crime novel he had been contracted to write. </p><p>Andrew checked his outline for the fifty-third time that day.</p><p>It was all there. The research, the character studies, the plot map, various scene sketches. One would think that with such a well-planned skeleton it should be <i>easy</i> to fill in the rest. The meat and the arteries, the blood and muscle and all the working bits that would take an inanimate collection of letters and jumble them into something coherent and alive. He had done it before, after all. He had done it <i>four</i> times before, actually - and if the New York Times Bestsellers list was anything to go by, he was pretty damn good at it.</p><p>(To be fair, Andrew knew that just because a lot of people <i>bought</i> a book did not necessarily mean that the book was of <i>quality</i>. Even if it did, Andrew had never set out to be a writer with the intention of pleasing people or becoming famous… but it still stood for <i>something</i>, no matter how much he pretended not to care.)</p><p>Point being - Andrew knew how to write. He had everything he needed for this particular story all neat and ready for him. It was just… every single time he sat down to actually <i>do</i> it, what he came up with was always…</p><p>
  <i>Sunday mornings are the one day that Doe allows himself indulgence. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>He indulges in the softness of his sheets and the slow warming of the bedroom from the sunlight as it gradually fills the space. He indulges in the utter lack of sound, his phone silenced and door shut so the chattering of the clock hanging in the hall cannot be heard. He indulges in the slow roll toward consciousness, absent of urgency, and the way his senses pick up on the world around him in bits and pieces so he can savor his favorite parts and ignore the rest. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>This morning, this Sunday, the first thing he notices is the comfortable presence of another body beside his own. There is the gentle weight of a head on his chest and an arm looped over his waist. Soft, steady breathing dances across his bare skin. It is warm, and just light enough that it teases the hair on his chest in a way that might have been ticklish if--</i>
</p><p>Andrew stared at his most recently aborted sentence in horror. Did he really just… just… <i>Ticklish!?</i> Sunday morning… cuddles? What the actual fuck?</p><p>With a huff of frustration, Andrew thrust himself backward hard enough in his chair that the wheels clicked and whined as they carried him a few inches away from his desk. He pulled off his glasses and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Perhaps if this was the first day of his trouble he would just log off the computer and distract his head for a while - reboot and start again later - but this was day <i>six</i> of this… this <i>block</i> and he did not know what was causing it. He had everything he needed to write this damn story but every single time he sat down to do it, it was just… <i>wrong</i>. Wrong in <i>so many ways</i> - and why the fuck did he keep trying to put the emphasis on Doe and Abram’s relationship? This manuscript was going to have a <i>small romantic subplot</i> - that’s it. Not even necessarily romantic! Doe and Abram had a strong connection, sure. Would they fuck? Definitely. But that didn’t mean the whole tone of the book needed to focus on their… their <i>feelings</i>. He wasn’t writing a fucking romance novel here. </p><p>A small tap of knuckles on wood had him jolting out of his own head and he dropped his hands, glancing over at the doorway. At the sight of the lean, auburn-haired man leaning against the frame, wearing a quizzical expression and holding two mugs of something hot and steaming, Andrew felt his heart clench and -- <i>oh.</i></p><p>“That bad?” Neil asked, inviting himself in when Andrew didn’t immediately tell him to fuck off. He crossed the room in a few languid strides and set down one of the mugs on the ceramic cat-shaped coaster that lived directly to the left of Andrew’s keyboard. Andrew stared at the mountain of mini-marshmallows for a moment too long, attempting to wrestle back into submission the invasive flutter of <i>too many feelings</i> that, over the past several years, had taken up residence in his chest like a colony of bats - clinging to his walls and rafters, filling him with a warm and living darkness he really had no idea what to do with and could barely contain. </p><p>While he wrestled with his feeling-bats, Neil leaned around him, one hand braced on the back of the chair, and read, “‘Sunday mornings are the one day that Doe allows himself indulgence. He indulges in--’”</p><p>Andrew almost knocked over his damn hot chocolate (undoubtedly flavored perfectly with a dash of hazelnut creamer because no one ever said you couldn’t put coffee creamer in hot chocolate and Neil knew him well enough to include it) with how fast he shoved himself forward, lunging for the mouse to minimize the word processor window. </p><p>Neil chuckled and released the back of the chair, stepping back and lifting his free hand in surrender. “Not ready to be seen by mere mortals, I get it.” He moved back toward the door but paused before he walked through it, smiling over his shoulder at Andrew in a way that always made Andrew feel uncomfortably <i>weak</i>. “I’m ordering in for dinner. The snow is coming down hard and I refuse to drive to the grocery store in that mess. Pizza sound good?”</p><p>It was good that Neil was used to Andrew’s silences by now, because he didn’t really have his voice back yet from the scare that came with Neil almost reading the travesty of literal <i>goo</i> he’d left on the stupid page, right there in plain-fucking-sight. When he nodded mutely in agreement, his best friend and roommate just took it without question before leaving him with another of those stupid smiles. </p><p>Andrew sagged in his chair when he was alone again. He pulled up the word processor, deleted all traitorous one hundred and sixty-nine words, then shoved his keyboard out of the way to make room for his arms - wherein which he instantly smothered himself with a muffled groan. </p><p>He was so fucking <i>fucked.</i></p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*-*-*</p>
</div>Andrew tortured himself in front of the computer for another two hours or so, only emerging when Neil briefly popped his head in to announce that the food was here. Their house was not a large one and Neil easily could have just shouted for him, but for some reason the idiot preferred to fetch him in person. Either way, it was a good enough reason to shut down his computer for the night - it wasn’t like he was going to get anything written, anyway. In the two hours since Neil had delivered his hazelnut hot cocoa, Andrew had succeeded only in writing (and then immediately deleting) another six false starts, highlighting four random passages in his outline, and probably busting his backspace key with how many times he’d jabbed it with his middle finger.<p>While Andrew spent most days holed up in his office, duking it out with the English language (and losing <i>horribly</i>), Neil used their living room as his primary workspace. His work as a translator occasionally required him to travel (around the country or around the <i>world</i> depending on the client) but several of his regular clients only needed him to translate documents and lately the assignments he’d been taking hadn’t required any commuting. </p><p>What this meant was that - with both of them more or less getting to fashion their own schedules and regularly working from home - they had certain rituals throughout the week. </p><p>Wednesday night was one of those rituals - and Andrew had forgotten that today was, in fact, Wednesday before he came down the stairs from today’s particularly brutal session of <i>What The Fuck Are Words, Anyway?</i> to see that Neil had the fire burning in the fireplace and about seven layers of blankets, fully-unzipped sleeping bags, and pillows arranged in a hybrid blanket-mattress-nest before the hearth. The pizza box was arranged on the coffee table off to one side of the nest and there was a bottle of wine already opened and airing with two glasses beside it. Neil’s glass had a charm around the stem in the shape of a cactus, Andrew’s was a cat. Sitting among the neatly made blanket-nest were two copies of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ - the current play they were reading through. </p><p>Because Wednesday was Drama Night, and on Wednesdays he and Neil would make a nest on the floor in front of the fire and each of them would pick certain characters and they would read plays out loud to each other.</p><p>It was totally a friend thing to do.</p><p>Andrew bet a lot of best friends who lived together did stuff like this, and they <i>definitely</i> cuddled afterward. Probably while marinating in a zesty mix of barely-repressed mutual pining, but whatever it wasn’t like Andrew would know anything about that. He was just here for the Shakespeare and the wine.</p><p>“Do you want to put something on while we eat or just jump right in?” Neil asked as he picked his way carefully over their nest to settle into his spot. He’d changed into a loose pair of pajama pants that hung lower on his hips than his t-shirt covered, revealing a sliver of bare skin at his waist at least until he sat down. Andrew pretended not to notice it as he found his own spot, marked by his favorite body pillow and his copy of the book. </p><p>“Let’s put something on,” Andrew said with a sigh. “I’m still deciding how bitter I want to be toward the written word in general.”</p><p>Neil chuckled and leaned over to grab his laptop. “You want to tell me about it?” </p><p>Andrew made a face as Neil got the laptop booted up so they could choose something from one of the various streaming services they shared a membership for. </p><p>See, that was the problem. He <i>did</i> and he <i>didn’t</i> want to tell Neil about his writer’s block. He <i>did</i> because that’s what he always did. Neil was the first (and for a very long time the <i>only</i>) person Andrew had ever shown his writing to. He never felt judged or apprehensive about it. He knew that Neil would be honest with him about what was on the page without being unnecessarily cruel. Nothing Andrew wrote made it to his editor without first passing by Neil. It just… didn’t feel complete until Neil had read it. It didn’t feel ready. Didn’t feel <i>right</i>.</p><p>On the other hand, this block in particular seemed to be caused by the rubble of his own failed mental walls - the ones supposed to separate his true feelings for Neil from their decade-long friendship. </p><p>He and Neil had been best friends since high school, though back then Neil had been going by the name ‘Alex’ while he and his mom had been on the run from his psycho dad. Then said psycho dad had caught up with them and ‘Alex’ had vanished for almost a year. Andrew had lost his mind for a while there, sure that his best friend - the boy he knew he was falling for in a way he honestly hadn’t thought he was capable of - was dead. For months he’d obsessed over the news, scouring the internet daily for anything that might be about his missing friend. Except, while he knew ‘Alex’ had been in danger, knew he had been running from his father - he hadn’t known the details. He hadn’t even known his real name. </p><p>Then, two days before Andrew was supposed to leave for college, there was a knock on the front door of the house he shared with his brother and cousin - and there he was. He was a fucking mess, covered in brand new scars all over his arms and his <i>face</i>, but the blue eyes Andrew had always known were there now looked back at him unguarded. Neil - as he’d informed Andrew was now his name - told Andrew about how his mom had been killed, how he’d had to run again, and how his father had eventually caught up with him for the last time. He told him how the FBI had crashed in at <i>just</i> the right time to save his life - and how he’d had to cut a deal with them to avoid being charged himself for the various crimes he and his mom had committed while they were on the run. </p><p>He told him how he’d declined Witness Protection - because if he went under there was no telling when he’d be let out again. Instead, he’d come back. He’d come to Columbia. </p><p>To Andrew. </p><p>Andrew had decided then and there that he had to be careful with these feelings he had for the blue-eyed boy. He knew from their conversations before he’d disappeared that Neil wasn’t interested in sex or a relationship with either gender and while he (later) realized that this was something that could change… he wasn’t willing to risk their friendship, risk losing what they <i>had</i>. What they were, that would be enough. </p><p>And for a long time - it was. Andrew tried to shut down his romantic feelings for Neil completely at first. Neil followed him to college, getting his own apartment as he did translation work for the FBI (a part of his deal for walking away without getting charged for any of the shit he and his mom had done on the run). Instead of outright moving in with Neil, Andrew had stayed in the dorms with his brother and cousin. He hooked up with guys here and there, even attempted a relationship or two before ultimately deciding that while he could get sex from anyone with the sense to follow directions and a semi-decent physical appeal - the only person he could trust with that kind of emotional investment, the only person he <i>wanted</i> to invest in emotionally like that… was Neil. </p><p>So Andrew had decided to accept that yes, he was in love with Neil - and no, that was not going to change - but that didn’t mean he had to let his own stupid feelings threaten their relationship. </p><p>Since he’d come to that conclusion, since he’d accepted it, things had been… <i>good</i>. Better than good. Better than he deserved, really. There had been a few near-misses. Times when he’d been sad and drunk or tired and frustrated. Times when something had been going on with Neil and they’d gotten close to… <i>something</i>. A touch, even a kiss - but nothing they ever talked about the next morning. Andrew refused to let himself get his hopes up on these occurrences. After all, if college had taught him anything, it was that sometimes friends just got a little bit drunk and made out. </p><p>That being said…</p><p>“Andrew?”</p><p>Andrew snapped himself out of his brooding thoughts to find that Neil was watching him, concern painting a crease right between his brows. Andrew blinked a few times, then rubbed a hand over his face - feigning fatigue as a misdirection. “Sorry, what?”</p><p>He knew very well <i>‘what’</i></p><p>For a moment, Andrew actually thought Neil was going to let him get away with it. The other man stared at him for a second, then situated the laptop where they could both see it on the edge of the nest. While Neil did that, Andrew twisted to be able to pull the pizza box down from the coffee table, checking the bottom for grease before settling it on the blankets between them - both a barrier and a distraction from whatever conversation Neil might have tried to nudge them toward. </p><p>Except Neil apparently was immune to such simple tricks - because just as Andrew took a bite of his first slice the other man said, “Is this about the romance?” He hadn’t started the movie, instead leaving it paused on the Dreamworks sigil as he eased back into his spot.</p><p>Andrew choked and Neil didn’t even <i>care</i>. He just picked up his own slice of pizza and took a bite, chewing with exaggerated patience as Andrew got his <i>breathing</i> back in order. </p><p>“What?” Andrew rasped dumbly as he set his slice back into the box. </p><p>“The romance,” Neil said again, his tone almost <i>casual</i>. Almost. There was something… else underneath the conversational nonchalance. Something that Andrew could not quite identify. “Between your main character and the… how did you describe him?” Just one side of his mouth quirked up in dry amusement as he put down his half-eaten slice and pushed up to his knees to lean across Andrew and grab the bottle of wine. “Oh yes. The ‘inconveniently hot piece of <i>sass</i>’ your hero has to put up with for the duration of his ill-timed and unasked-for adventure.” Neil plucked the wine glasses up as well and Andrew reflexively accepted the one he offered him, holding it steady as Neil poured the wine.</p><p>There were pieces of a puzzle here suddenly being linked together without Andrew’s permission. Pieces he had thought he’d well and buried.</p><p>(Granted, they were pieces to a puzzle - the design of which Andrew had also painted on the metaphorical living room wall for all who entered his domain to see, bright and loud and clear.)</p><p>“You can’t ignore the chemistry between the characters, but you also aren’t sure what to do with it, right?” Neil continued without apparently needing his input. “It would be easier if it were something purely physical, if they weren’t emotionally compatible, but they <i>are</i> and now you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place - because you aren’t confident adding romance into the narrative.” He kept his tone cool, conversational, but Andrew had known Neil for far too long to fall for it. </p><p>“Into the narrative of the story, I mean,” Neil added unnecessarily once he’d set the bottle aside, his eyes flicking up to meet Andrew’s over the rim of his wine glass as he took a sip. </p><p>“The story.” Andrew attempted to make it a confirmation, an agreement, a continuation of the conversation. It might have worked too, if his mouth weren’t suddenly dry, his throat tight, his chest heavy with the weight of a hundred thousand unsaid things.</p><p>Neil took another sip of his wine without breaking eye contact and Andrew’s lungs were burning by the time he realized he hadn’t taken a breath yet. They continued to burn as he watched Neil swirl the ruby liquid in slow circles, neither of them speaking for a long moment. </p><p>Then Neil said, his voice quiet and steady and <i>knowing</i>, “Andrew.”</p><p>There was a warring of impulses then: Run. Kiss. Dismiss. Lash out. Kiss. Push away. Kiss. Withdraw. Ignore. Kiss. </p><p>The one that won? <i>Breathe.</i></p><p>The flood of air hit his lungs in a sharp, chilly wave. It was not a loud gasp, but that’s still what it was. The shock to his system was enough to get him moving and he prepared to do any number of those impulses that weren’t <i>kiss him kiss him kiss him</i> because he had spent a decade conditioning himself that he and Neil were star-crossed at best and admittance would mean doom.</p><p>A moment later, almost without Andrew registering the movement, Neil had set down his glass of wine beside the bottle and pushed aside the box of pizza. Then he was beside him, gently pulling Andrew’s glass from his hand without so much as a brushing of their fingers and twisting to place it carefully on the table. That done, Neil turned back to Andrew and lifted his hands, hovering them to either side of Andrew’s face without touching - like putting up blinders, so all Andrew could see was Neil. </p><p>Though really, all Andrew could <i>ever</i> see was Neil. </p><p>“Andrew,” Neil said again, his voice soft - and Andrew realized that they were very close, close enough he could feel the puff of Neil’s breath against his lips. There was the softest, lightest touch to the sides of his face, the barest brush of Neil’s thumbs over his cheeks. When Andrew didn’t tense or pull away, those hands - those strong and scarred and <i>beautiful</i> hands - settled against his skin, cradling his face as if he - <i>Andrew</i> - were the treasure in the room, though Andrew knew the only true thing of value in this whole world was marked with endless, timeless blue.</p><p>The roughened pads of Neil’s thumbs caressed over the crests of his cheeks, and then that blue vanished as Neil closed his eyes and brought their foreheads together. “Andrew, you can tell me no at any point. Tell me no, and I’ll let go and back up and we can go back to eating pizza and I will start the movie and we can pretend this didn’t happen until it feels like it never did.” His voice remained soft, but not whispered, the pitch low enough that Andrew could feel the hum of it against his lips as if his mouth were pressed to the bare exposure of Neil’s throat. </p><p>“I know you want to kiss me more than you want to want to. I know you want to touch me more than you think you should. We are already everything but those touches, and I thought you knew I want them too.”</p><p>Even the static in Andrew’s head fell away to perfect silence, and he wasn’t sure if it was hope or fear gripping his heart just then - though he supposed in some cases the two were pretty much the same. Because yes, there had been times (more and more of them in recent years, and especially since he’d started working on this book) where he had looked at Neil and thought… where he had <i>known</i> that Neil’s position in their relationship was no more platonic than his own. </p><p>But what if he had been <i>wrong?</i> What if he screwed up everything, reaching for what he knew - deep down - could never be for a man like Andrew Minyard. </p><p>Neil leaned back enough to look at him, really <i>look</i> at him - and whatever he saw must have annoyed him because his bows drew together, those blue eyes narrowing in a sharp, pointed glare. </p><p>“Don’t you dare.” His tone was a warning but his hands remained gentle, thumbs still stroking the lines just under his eyes. </p><p>“I didn’t do anything,” Andrew grumbled before he could stop himself.</p><p>“I could argue that’s exactly the problem, but we’d get away from the point.”</p><p>Now it was Andrew’s turn to glare and he didn’t hold back. “To be fair, you didn’t do anything either.” If Neil felt that way, if Neil <i>wanted</i> the same thing Andrew wanted - why hadn’t he said so? Neil was not exactly a shy person. </p><p>“I’m doing something now.”</p><p>Andrew felt the urge to argue, but Neil was right - that would distract away from what was happening right now. Instead he asked, in a voice softer and more vulnerable than he intended, “And what are you doing now, Neil? What do you want?”</p><p>Andrew expected hesitation. He expected something vague. He expected… he didn’t know what he expected, exactly - but it wasn’t Neil’s firm and confident response, like he’d been thinking about it for a long time and had just been waiting for the right time to say it.</p><p>“I want to kiss you. Not just now, but regularly - whenever you’ll let me. I want to stop pretending that we’re only friends. I want to tell you that I love you. I want you to understand <i>exactly</i> how much you mean to me. I want to keep this - keep <i>us</i> - for as long as you’ll have me, because if it’s left up to me it’s going to be forever. I want--”</p><p>Whatever Neil had been about to say melted into a soft sound of surprise as Andrew cut him off with a kiss. It hadn’t been an active decision as much as it was an act of instinct. An instinct that had grown too strong to be inhibited by the wariness he had so carefully cultivated over the years. There was no distinct intention behind the kiss other than to just <i>kiss</i> him, this man that drove him crazy and soothed his soul all at the same time. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to hear what Neil wanted, it was that hearing exactly <i>what</i> Neil wanted - and that it was mainly <i>him</i> - had pushed Andrew to a point where his need to give Neil everything he could ever want easily overpowered the doubts of his self-conscious mind. </p><p>Neil wanted him. Neil wanted <i>him</i> - and Andrew had been denying both of them for far too long.</p><p>The moment their mouths touched, the dam broke - and what started as a simple kiss swelled swiftly into hands and gasps and beating hearts. Neil’s fingers soon curled to tangle in his hair as Andrew reached for him - not content with even the illusion of space between them. Then Neil was no longer beside him but straddling his lap, Andrew’s hands gripping his hips as he tried to bring him closer still. </p><p>“I want--” Neil gasped again against his lips, and Andrew wondered if those words were becoming a trigger to his need, because the sound of them stroked something primal inside of him he was quickly losing all control of. His hands tightened and a sound rumbled deep in his chest that might have been a moan and might have been a growl and might have even been an attempt at speech - but whatever it was didn’t matter because it was swallowed up by Neil’s lips before it could escape between them on a panted breath. </p><p>Andrew lost track of who was kissing who. All that mattered was the press of Neil’s strong body against his own, the way he trembled with uncontained heat under his hands as Andrew slipped them under his shirt to finally touch the bare skin he’d been fantasizing about for years. The kiss broke again at that touch, and Andrew hesitated for only a moment until he registered it was a moan breaking free of Neil’s lips rather than a protest. </p><p>“Andrew,” Neil sighed. Then again - “<i>Andrew</i>” - with more urgency as he looked down and their eyes met. </p><p>Andrew had spent so much time looking into those eyes over the years that they were a truer sky to him than the actual heavens. They stormed for him. They sheltered him. They brought him absolution and marked his every horizon. He had studied and wondered at and basked in the glow of those eyes. He knew their every shade and every shadow. And yet he had <i>never</i> seen them quite like this.</p><p>Stars were simultaneously made of old, dead light and forever-burning fire. They were ageless and eternal, the foundation of all truth and all lies ever told. Andrew had always thought of Neil’s eyes as stars - because of their beauty and because of how unreachable, how unattainable the man they shone in had always seemed to him. But in this moment there was nothing more real, more raw, more true, more personal, and more <i>his</i> than the light shining in Neil’s eyes just then. If they were stars, then they were made of uniquely mortal fire. Something as touchable as it was bright, as close to home as the blood-filled heart pounding in his own chest.</p><p>“Tell me, Neil,” he heard himself say - less like it was someone else speaking through him and more that his deepest thoughts and desires had shunted his reasoning mind out of the way, leaving him to watch and feel and let things finally happen that they had been on the precipice of for far too long. He leaned forward and nipped at Neil’s mouth. Then, when Neil’s breath caught, again but at his neck. </p><p>“I want,” Neil murmured as his fingers stroked slowly though his hair, the scratch of his nails against Andrew’s scalp making him sigh and lean closer, nuzzling down his throat to kiss at his pulse, “to hear you say it. Tell <i>me</i>, Andrew. Tell me what you want.”</p><p>And maybe something really had been freed in him - because instead of protesting, instead of backpedaling, instead of sidestepping a truth both of them clearly already knew, Andrew said, “You.” He kissed over Neil’s thudding pulse, then pulled back enough to look up at him. He slipped his hands out from under the other man’s shirt to instead be able to reach up and cup his face, holding him steady but careful. “It has always, <i>always</i>, been you.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <b>Bonus:</b>
</p><p>A few days later.</p><p>Andrew: By the way, what made you decide to finally say something?</p><p>Neil: Andrew, you literally named your two main characters ‘Doe’ and ‘Abram’. I thought you were planning some kind of big romantic reveal for fucking MONTHS. *gives him a look*</p><p>Andrew: … I’m a fucking idiot.</p><p>Neil: *kiss* I still love you.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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